JanusVM is an open source VMware image that combines Ubuntu, Tor, dns-proxy-tor, Squid, Privoxy, and openvpn all into a convenient little package. Just load up the appliance in VMware and make a VPN connection to the virtual machine’s IP. Once you’ve connected, all of your traffic (including DNS) will be localy encrypted and anonymized over Tor. This is incredibly useful for you road warriors and coffee shop surfers who don’t trust the security of a public wifi network.

For windows machines, setup is incredibly easy. The JanusVM server has a network share with a .bat file on it that will automatically configure your VPN for you. Linux users have to set up the VPN connection manually but it’s a fairly simple process. I’ve been trying to get this to work under the new VMware OS X client, but for some reason the network completely conks out as soon as I activate the VPN. If you get this working, let me know. I’ll keep monkeying with it myself and let you know what I come up with.